Thursday, July 23, 2009

I finally watched the new Star Trek movie last Saturday.

These were my expectations
  • Less comic relief
  • Less Hollywood 'science' and heroics
  • Something along the standards of what Christopher Nolan did in The Dark Knight

I was expecting too much. The less said the better, but these were the things that jarred me (bulletpointing makes things clearer and more concise, so)
  • A Turbo lift where buttons are pressed (whatever happened to the voice commands?)
  • Tricorders that look like extra-slim cellphones. This is accentuated when the crew start speaking into the tricorder instead of doing the comm-badge-slap-and-speak thing.
  • The new look comm badges. They do not look sleek. They look like misshapen blobs when seen from any distance greater than 30 cms.
This is what Carl Sagan had to say about Star Trek (in Broca's Brain) -

'In a future in which interstellar travel is common, the ships officers are embarrassingly Anglo-American.'

This is no longer the case with recent series and this movie, but the latter gets a thumbs down as far as female portrayal is concerned. The sole role of Lt. Uhura in this movie seems to be to fulfill the hot chick routine and kiss Spock from time to time.

Come to think of it, the only Star Trek series starring a female captain is ST:Voyager.

Overall, a distinctly odd Trekexperience.